Supporting eLearners by Increasing Digital Literacy Skills in Healthcare Educators

This paper presents a case study detailing the author’s involvement in a teacher training module designed to improve healthcare educators’ scope for delivering e-learning elements within their curricula. The best method for enhancing teacher understanding of how students experience learning in the online environment is by first allowing teachers to experience the process themselves from a student perspective. It is proposed that such exposure will allow teachers to gain greater insight into the potential benefits and pitfalls of online delivery and apply the knowledge gained to their own practice. Teachers from a wide range of healthcare specialities engaged in discussion forums and gained practice in new and varied methods of e-learning, discovering how they could be blended with traditional classroom-based delivery to achieve a diverse range of learning outcomes. It was found that the inter-disciplinary representation on the module created a potent mix of experience and viewpoints that greatly contributed to the overall learning environment. The cohort of twelve included adult and children branch nursing (hospital- and community-based), midwifery, allied health and a member of the e-learning support team

Long term geological record of a global deep subsurface microbial habitat in sand injection complexes

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Foot Bone in Vivo: Its Center of Mass and Centroid of Shape

This paper studies foot bone geometrical shape and its mass distribution and establishes an assessment method of bone strength. Using spiral CT scanning, with an accuracy of sub-millimeter, we analyze the data of 384 pieces of foot bones in vivo and investigate the relationship between the bone's external shape and internal structure. This analysis is explored on the bases of the bone's center of mass and its centroid of shape. We observe the phenomenon of superposition of center of mass and centroid of shape fairly precisely, indicating a possible appearance of biomechanical organism. We investigate two aspects of the geometrical shape, (i) distance between compact bone's centroid of shape and that of the bone and (ii) the mean radius of the same density bone issue relative to the bone's centroid of shape. These quantities are used to interpret the influence of different physical exercises imposed on bone strength, thereby contributing to an alternate assessment technique to bone strength.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Fecal occult blood and fecal calprotectin as point-of-care markers of intestinal morbidity in Ugandan children with Schistosoma mansoni infection.

BACKGROUND: Calprotectin is a calcium-binding cytoplasmic protein found in neutrophils and increasingly used as a marker of bowel inflammation. Fecal occult blood (FOB) is also a dependable indicator of bowel morbidity. The objective of our study was to determine the applicability of these tests as surrogate markers of Schistosoma mansoni intestinal morbidity before and after treatment with praziquantel (PZQ). METHODS: 216 children (ages 3-9 years old) from Buliisa District in Lake Albert, Uganda were examined and treated with PZQ at baseline in October 2012 with 211 of them re-examined 24 days later for S. mansoni and other soil transmitted helminths (STH). POC calprotectin and FOB assays were performed at both time points on a subset of children. Associations between the test results and infection were analysed by logistic regression. RESULTS: Fecal calprotectin concentrations of 150-300 µg/g were associated with S. mansoni egg patent infection both at baseline and follow up (OR: 12.5 P = 0.05; OR: 6.8 P = 0.02). FOB had a very strong association with baseline anemia (OR: 9.2 P = 0.03) and medium and high egg intensity schistosomiasis at follow up (OR: 6.6 P = 0.03; OR: 51.3 P = 0.003). Both tests were strongly associated with heavy intensity S. mansoni infections. There was a significant decrease in FOB and calprotectin test positivity after PZQ treatment in those children who had egg patent schistosomiasis at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Both FOB and calprotectin rapid assays were found to correlate positively and strongly with egg patent S. mansoni infection with a positive ameloriation response after PZQ treatment indicative of short term reversion of morbidity. Both tests were appropriate for use in the field with excellent operational performance and reliability. Due to its lower-cost which makes its scale-up of use affordable, FOB could be immediately adopted as a monitoring tool for PC campaigns for efficacy evaluation before and after treatment

Mechanical properties of β-HMX

Background: For a full understanding of the mechanical properties of a material, it is essential to understand the defect structures and associated properties and microhardness indentation is a technique that can aid this understanding. Results: The Vickers hardness on (010), {011} and {110} faces lay in the range of 304-363 MPa. The Knoop Hardnesses on the same faces lay in the range 314-482 MPa. From etching of three indented surfaces, the preferred slip planes have been identified as (001) and (101). For a dislocation glide, the most likely configuration for dislocation movement on the (001) planes is (001) [100] (|b| = 0.65 nm) and for the (101) plane as (101) 101~(|b| = 1.084 nm) although (101) [010] (|b| = 1.105 nm) is possible. Tensile testing showed that at a stress value of 2.3 MPa primary twinning occurred and grew with increasing stress. When the stress was relaxed, the twins decreased in size, but did not disappear. The twinning shear strain was calculated to be 0.353 for the (101) twin plane. Conclusions: HMX is considered to be brittle, compared to other secondary explosives. Comparing HMX with a range of organic solids, the values for hardness numbers are similar to those of other brittle systems. Under the conditions developed beneath a pyramidal indenter, dislocation slip plays a major part in accommodating the local deformation stresses. © 2015 Gallagher et al.; licensee Springer

Global and regional brain metabolic scaling and its functional consequences

Background: Information processing in the brain requires large amounts of metabolic energy, the spatial distribution of which is highly heterogeneous reflecting complex activity patterns in the mammalian brain. Results: Here, it is found based on empirical data that, despite this heterogeneity, the volume-specific cerebral glucose metabolic rate of many different brain structures scales with brain volume with almost the same exponent around -0.15. The exception is white matter, the metabolism of which seems to scale with a standard specific exponent -1/4. The scaling exponents for the total oxygen and glucose consumptions in the brain in relation to its volume are identical and equal to $0.86\pm 0.03$, which is significantly larger than the exponents 3/4 and 2/3 suggested for whole body basal metabolism on body mass. Conclusions: These findings show explicitly that in mammals (i) volume-specific scaling exponents of the cerebral energy expenditure in different brain parts are approximately constant (except brain stem structures), and (ii) the total cerebral metabolic exponent against brain volume is greater than the much-cited Kleiber's 3/4 exponent. The neurophysiological factors that might account for the regional uniformity of the exponents and for the excessive scaling of the total brain metabolism are discussed, along with the relationship between brain metabolic scaling and computation.Comment: Brain metabolism scales with its mass well above 3/4 exponen

Increased shear in the North Atlantic upper-level jet stream over the past four decades

Earth’s equator-to-pole temperature gradient drives westerly mid-latitude jet streams through thermal wind balance. In the upper atmosphere, anthropogenic climate change is strengthening this meridional temperature gradient by cooling the polar lower stratosphere and warming the tropical upper troposphere acting to strengthen the upper-level jet stream. In contrast, in the lower atmosphere, Arctic amplification of global warming is weakening the meridional temperature gradient acting to weaken the upper-level jet stream. Therefore, trends in the speed of the upper-level jet stream represent a closely balanced tug-of-war between two competing effects at different altitudes. It is possible to isolate one of the competing effects by analysing the vertical shear—the change in wind speed with height—instead of the wind speed, but this approach has not previously been taken. Here we show that, although the zonal wind speed in the North Atlantic polar jet stream at 250 hectopascals has not changed since the start of the observational satellite era in 1979, the vertical shear has increased by 15 per cent (with a range of 11–17 per cent) according to three different reanalysis datasets. We further show that this trend is attributable to the thermal wind response to the enhanced upper-level meridional temperature gradient. Our results indicate that climate change may be having a larger impact on the North Atlantic jet stream than previously thought. The increased vertical shear is consistent with the intensification of shear-driven clear-air turbulence expected from climate change which will affect aviation in the busy transatlantic flight corridor by creating a more turbulent flying environment for aircraft. We conclude that the effects of climate change and variability on the upper-level jet stream are being partly obscured by the traditional focus on wind speed rather than wind shear

Measurement of the running of the QED coupling in small-angle Bhabha scattering at LEP

Using the OPAL detector at LEP, the running of the effective QED coupling alpha(t) is measured for space-like momentum transfer from the angular distribution of small-angle Bhabha scattering. In an almost ideal QED framework, with very favourable experimental conditions, we obtain: Delta alpha(-6.07GeV^2) - Delta alpha(-1.81GeV^2) = (440 pm 58 pm 43 pm 30) X 10^-5, where the first error is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic and the third is the theoretical uncertainty. This agrees with current evaluations of alpha(t).The null hypothesis that alpha remains constant within the above interval of -t is excluded with a significance above 5sigma. Similarly, our results are inconsistent at the level of 3sigma with the hypothesis that only leptonic loops contribute to the running. This is currently the most significant direct measurment where the running alpha(t) is probed differentially within the measured t range.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.

Comparative study of the stability of bimatoprost 0.03% and latanoprost 0.005%: A patient-use study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The stability of ophthalmic preparations in multidose containers is influenced by the preservative as well as the stability of the active ingredient. Unstable drugs may require refrigeration to preserve their active ingredient level and they are more likely to degrade over time, therefore becoming more susceptible to degradation based on patient mishandling. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of molecular degradation that occurs in bimatoprost and latanoprost in a patient-use setting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was an open-label, laboratory evaluation of the relative stability of bimatoprost and latanoprost. Patients presently using bimatoprost (n = 31) or latanoprost (n = 34) were identified at 2 clinical sites in Brazil. Patients were instructed to use and store their drops as usual and return all used medication bottles between day 28 and day 34 after opening.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Bimatoprost demonstrated no degradation, but latanoprost degraded at various levels. The mean age of bimatoprost was 43.0 ± 3.4 days and the mean age of latanoprost was 43.9 ± 2.8 days (P = .072). The mean percentage of labeled concentration was 103.7% in the bimatoprost bottles and 88.1% in the latanoprost bottles (P < 001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study showed that bimatoprost maintained ≥100% concentration throughout the study period while latanoprost did not.</p